


Restless

by Kalyppso



Series: Side-Stories in Skyrim [2]
Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-18 13:33:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29119020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalyppso/pseuds/Kalyppso
Summary: Oretia, an Imperial woman OC, feels compelled to find out why the College of Winterhold has been so quiet the past few days, and forces the Archmage, Philip, a Breton man OC, to take a nap.
Relationships: Original Male Character(s)/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Side-Stories in Skyrim [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2136564
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	Restless

Snow danced in the moonlight, a slow wispy pace. Oretia had failed to consider how much darkness there was up north in the winter. It was late, far later than she should have waited for company, yet still she lit a longer candle, and replaced what was left of the nub by the windowsill, in case company should come calling, and wonder whether she had waited.

The cottage was three rooms, made for a family, same as the rest of the new construction in Winterhold. Hopeful of the Jarl, and convenient for working. The doors to her bedroom and the storage of brining buckskins sat closed, and it felt like her footsteps echoed in the little house.

She’d debated, hours ago, whether she should call upon a neighbour, offer them some of dinner, and resolve some need of company, but was paralyzed by propriety. The Archmage had invited her to dine a few times now, though only once at his expense, and she wondered about the extent of their friendship. Surely he had scholars and more worldly companionship within the College’s great stone walls, but she was happy to offer a distraction. By now she’d heard the stories of his ascension, having only heard wild rumors in the years prior, about how half the city had fallen into the sea. She’d known no one who’d been involved in the catastrophe still oriented the apprentices, but how they’d arrived at their current structure had been a tale. In either case, if Philip had arrived late for dinner only for her to have given it away, it would have been mortifying, even if the alternative had been lonely.

Oretia had lived most of her life with others, friends and colleagues in barracks, and more than half of it with her sister. Cooking food for one, even when you made a pot of something to last a week, the portion always looked meager, and lonely. There was a difference on the road, but, there was no need to weather the frost when the comfort of a bearskin rested upon a chair, and a book recording the Ballad of Jornibret's Last Dance called for another readthrough and imagining.

For two days Oretia expected a runner from the College, an explanation, an apology. She expected they were busy, with lessons, with holidays, with keeping everyone fed and warm and driven. However when no word came, despite knowing, logically, that this wasn’t the last she’d hear of them, or Philip, the restlessness of winter, and the gossip of her neighbours, compelled her to inquire into the situation on the following day.

The guard on the bridge was curt, insisting everything was fine with his words but not his demeanor, and unsatisfied with this answer, Oretia yet requested permission to cross into the College. It felt isolated on the bridge, the wind colder, from the sea and from the exposure of intruding. It was the first time she’d thought to go without an invitation. She was not unarmed, though there was no reason to be, but she felt unwary even so, her own grasp of magic middling at best. She wondered whether she would be mocked or ejected upon arrival.

Oretia had not expected to find a young Nord woman crying in the courtyard.

“Excuse me?” It felt rude to interrupt, but worse to pass her by, and dangerous perhaps, depending upon what might rest inside.

“Oh, no, I,” the young woman wiped at her eyes, sniffling. “I thought to be alone. Can I help you?” Her lip quivered with the question, and Oretia pouted, shaking her head.

“There must be places you can be alone inside? Are you alright?”

“I-I can’t,” she stuttered. “I know they locked him away, but I’m not ready to go back yet.”

“Locked him away?”

“Fellgan.”

For all the little this answered, Oretia did find herself relieved that she didn’t recognize the name. The prospect that they’d needed to lock away someone she’d known, the librarian or the Archmage, had stolen the breath from her lungs. She stood up straight, a little lost with what to do with her hands, not wanting to appear militant. She found herself bowing, awkwardly, as certainly this wasn’t the right reaction. Regardless, she greeted, “I’m Oretia, the new tanner in town. What’s your name, apprentice?”

“Lyngerd.”

“Lyngerd. Can you show me inside? I’m sure if they’ve locked him away then they’ve taken every precaution — and if you’re leading me inside, then you won’t need to go back in alone?”

The young woman hesitated, but eventually she nodded, and led them through a large sturdy door.

They easily found a gathering of senior staff, and they laughed to see the newcomer.

“Usually, the gossips simply wait for news to leave the Jarl’s quarters.”

“I worried,” Oretia confessed, watching Lyngerd escorted away by one of the Scholars. “Your apprentice tells me you had to lock someone away. No one was hurt, were they?”

“What’s this?” The Archmage stepped forward, humbling half of his staff and perceivably irritating the others.

Oretia frowned and tried to catch Philip’s eye, but she felt almost as if he didn’t see her. There were dark circles around his eyes, and he looked as though he hadn’t slept well in quite some time.

“There’d been no word from the College for near three days now,” she answered, when the others did not, her words both closer and farther from the truth of her concern. “I came to see if I could find news that might set my neighbours and I at ease.”

“Nine,” cursed a Scholar to her side. “They’re at no risk, tell them the College is well in order.”

“We sent word to the Jarl some days ago,” Philip told her, and his words felt distant. “If they should find it relevant to the people I am sure the news will spread. Otherwise, I know you are new to Winterhold, newer than I,” he amended, as if this did not still ‘other’ her, “but there are some things that transpire in the College which will not involve the city.”

“I see,” she agreed, anger plain in her tone and her posture, feeling far more self assured than when she was alone.

“You see Archmage,” touted one of the Scholars, “our neighbours will be unimpressed if we insist upon our secrets.”

“They are not secrets,” Philip spat. “There is transparency.”

Oretia found herself confused, as it did not feel as though the College were being transparent, but just with her, it would seem. She scowled at the Scholar. “Do not presume to speak for me. I said I understood, and so I understand. I thought there was reason to worry about a friend,” she had to bite down a smile when it looked as though Philip were startled awake, “and did not expect my presence to weigh in on your internal politics.” She deflated, lowering her arms, excusing herself with a nod. “I’ll show myself out.”

There was some hissing at her back, a quarrel that didn’t concern her not only because of propriety but also because of lack of interest. Oretia was happy to let the mages sort themselves out, at least they hadn’t burned themselves to cinders, or mutinied, yet.

“Wait.”

Philip was almost immediately behind her when she turned, eyes wide and frantic, an embarrassed smile playing at his lips. He extended his hand, as if he considered leaning against the door, before thinking better of it and awkwardly pulling back as he declared, almost as a question, “We were supposed to have dinner.”

Oretia laughed, and covered her mouth with a fist, and she watched his shoulders fall, caught somewhere between shame and relief.

“I have a good excuse?” he provided.

“So it would seem,” she agreed, eyes wandering behind him into the corridor. “You look tired.”

“Heh. Extremely.” He swallowed, adjusting his posture, as if there were any need to exaggerate his height. “I’m so sorry—”

“It’s fine,” and unlike the guard, she meant it. “I didn’t mean to put you on the spot like that.”

“You didn’t,” he insisted, but Oretia couldn’t imagine that was true. “Would you want…” he shook his head, thinking, “tea? Before you leave?”

A part of her told her to refuse, and to suggest he sleep if he was having trouble with so simple of concepts, but curiosity, and something else, got the better of her.

“Would I be welcome?”

“The College doesn’t forbid the uninitiated. We are meant to welcome guests, aspiring scholars,” he almost hesitated again, but it was to smile as he concluded, “and very good friends.”

The College was not a militia, but Oretia could see how even the staff who were friendly with the Archmage, would feel distanced by his title, moreso than she had a moment ago, as an outsider of the College.

“Meant to,” she echoed, teasing.

“If you mean to deny me then please—”

“No,” Oretia said swiftly, interrupting. “I would love a cup of tea, thank you.”

They awayed to the kitchens, where some students were yet gathered for a late lunch. Some hurried away at the sight of the Archmage, while others crowded and whispered, especially as he hooked a kettle to boil over one of the eternal flames; so called for their longevity, not their endurance.

“I spoke briefly with one of your apprentices,” Oretia whispered, attempting to make conversation. “Lyngerd.”

“Poor girl,” Philip commented, his voice hushed too. He eyed the others in the room, and seemed to decide they were at an acceptable distance, and chattering too loudly amongst themselves away. He stood facing away from them and confessed, “It’s naught but a lovers’ quarrel, as there always are, with youth like this. She broke Fellgan’s heart and he thought it the fault of her newer paramour. He cast Fury upon him so that he tried to attack the other students and staff. Only the boy was injured, and even then it was mostly his pride.”

He sighed, moving to prepare a teapot. “I have spoken with Fellgan. Some of the scholars wish to send him to the guard, ending his life and prospects — but he is **just a boy.** ” He closed his tired eyes, and released a long breath through his nose, before lowering his volume again, colored in the last by his rage. “The discipline needn’t be so unforgiving.”

“A hard situation.”

“What is your opinion?”

“I would worry for Lyngerd.” Oretia finally removed her outdoor coats, folding them over her arms. She adjusted the sleeves of her sweater beneath.

“As do I,” Philip conceded. “But expulsion seems inadequate. Fellgan knows enough magic to be manipulated.”

“Perhaps you could simply delay his education? A year or two spent in theory only, in the library?”

“Perpetual detention?” Philip asked, a snicker crinkling the scar across his nose.

“Well I don’t know,” Oretia groaned, gesturing with a hand, frowning at her companion, but that only seemed to amuse him further.

“No, no. You misunderstand. It is, by far, not the worst idea I’ve heard these past few days,” he promised. “And far kinder than most.”

“And this is why you forgot about our dinner?” Oretia redirected, following him to lean on the counter.

“It is.”

“And why you couldn’t send word for three days?”

“I’ve been,” he looked away and back, expression guilty and sad, “distracted. Busy.”

“You owe me a dinner,” she said, flat, “or at least a candle.”

“A candle?” Philip did a double take. “I’ve **seen** you use magic. Light is one of **the most** practical spells, don’t tell me you don’t know?”

“Restoration only,” she insisted, shaking her head. “I’ve told you. Though I _am_ getting better at starting fires, I’ve read so many scrolls now I’m seeing symbols of Alteration in my dreams.”

“Oretia,” he said, his tone a retort as if they were in argument. “You will learn the Light spell by spring — and far before—”

“As if you have time to teach me. As if I have time to learn.”

“It won’t take but a minute,” Philip countered. “And if I should really have no time, I will assign an apprentice to teach you, but you are learning that spell.”

She opened her mouth to promise him that his students’ time could be better spent, but then the kettle was whistling, and Philip was reaching out to it. The worried squawk his action shocked out of her came soon enough to freeze him in motion, but whatever the students thought was the cause of her distress, she could only guess.

“Philip.”

He offered a strained smile in response, reaching for a pot holder. “I told you. Distracted.”

“How much did you sleep last night?”

He shrugged, pouring the water into the teapot.

“Three hours?” Oretia suggested.

Philip shook his head.

“An hour?” Oretia offered again, and Philip leveled her with his tired eyes. She didn’t know whether that was an agreement or a hope on his part, and she had to concede that perhaps he didn’t know. “Philip, that’s—”

“It’s fine,” he promised.

“It isn’t.”

“I just need to get through the day, and then—”

“And then what?” Oretia hissed. “And then do it all over again? How many nights have you been having an hour’s sleep?”

He chuckled.

“This is serious,” she insisted, and he blanched. “What if this was one of your students? One of your staff? Could you rightfully let this go on?”

“Later,” he insisted, firm, looking back to his students.

She shook her head. “Sorry.”

His gaze flickered over her, something he’d done before, and which then she’d suspected was some kind of admiration, but she now worried was judgment, and wondered if it was how he expressed disgust.

“It’s alright,” he managed, looking away to the cups on the counter, and she could see the side of his mouth curl in a slight smile, and relaxed a little.

They stood in silence for a while, watching steam pour from the pot, waiting for the leaves to steep. Oretia hoped she hadn’t made things awkward, and sought something to say.

“Do you often make your own tea?”

“It breaks up the monotony,” Philip supplied. “We have rotating duty for breakfast and dinner, but midday — and late night, the College members usually serve ourselves, Archmage included.”

Her face wrinkled in amusement and suspicion. “Do you also take cooking duty?”

“Lucky for them,” he nodded to the students, “I don’t really have time for that, and when I do, they’re lucky I’m practiced cooking for a crowd, even if that was a lifetime ago.”

“Oh?”

“Oldest of five.”

Oretia snorted. “Well that would do it.” She swayed in place, from heel to heel, tapping the stone tiles with the point of her shoes. “I didn’t know you had siblings beyond the Dragonborn?”

“They prefer their privacy.”

“Mmm,” she hummed in understanding, teasing him. “It’s genetic then.”

“It’s learned,” he said, sullen.

“Gods, but I really know how to offend you today,” Oretia observed, watching as Philip poured the tea into mugs. “Make trouble with your staff, accuse you of self-destruction, be insensitive about your family…”

There was a current of honesty under her river of exaggeration, and she calmed to see a smile play at Philip’s weary features.

“I’ve heard worse, I promise you.”

He collected a tea tray, and Oretia waved at the students as she leaned on the heavy door, letting the Archmage lead her up to an alcove within the College. Setting her coat on the back of her chair, she accepted a warm cup and tried to balance her previous negligence. “Thank you. You do good work, you know? _You care._ Some of your predecessors may have set a low bar, and so I think criticism comes easier, even when people are relieved to have you around.”

“ _That_ sounds extremely presumptuous of you,” Philip scoffed.

“Well,” Oretia blew on her tea. “Don’t lose sleep over it.”

The tea was nutty and floral, its warmth soothing Oretia with each swallow. She wondered if it was meant to be healing, or simply tasteful, as the beverage seemed to put some color back in Philip’s cheeks, and now free of onlookers, Oretia pouted and tilted her head, curling loose hair back over her ear as her ponytail drooped at her side. “Are you so overrun? Do you work all through the night?”

“No,” Philip answered, running a finger beneath his chin, sobered by the question. “I’ve had trouble sleeping for years. It comes and goes.” He set his hands around his cup and shrugged. “I think exercise helps. Maybe.”

“Do you trot up and down your many stairs?” she asked, accusatory and curious about the manner of exercise he could get up to.

“I try to be more productive than _that_ ,” Philip whined. “Firewood, snow shoveling,” he paused and chuckled in spite of himself, “trotting library books up and down stairs.”

She shook her head, watching him drink. “How long do I have you for?”

“Until we finish our tea?” Philip suggested.

Oretia looked back and forth at the many benches that lined the upper hallway. “Why don’t you lay down?”

“I couldn’t.”

“Why not? Just. Try to get ten minutes in the hour? Maybe you’ll feel something-like-refreshed by the time you need address Fellgan again?”

“I have a bed here,” Philip commented, as if spurning the idea of sleeping on the bench.

“But you haven’t been sleeping in it,” Oretia countered. “I’ll jab you in the neck if I hear someone’s looking for the Archmage. You just need to close your eyes.”

“It won’t work,” Philip argued. “And it’s humiliating.”

“No one need know.”

“You’ll know.”

“It was my suggestion.”

Philip sighed, and took a long draught from his cup. “Fine.”

“Good,” Oretia agreed, shifting her chair across the floor as carefully and quietly as she could, to be farther from the table, and closer to the bench.

Philip looked as though it was agony to agree, and Oretia lamented feeling as though she were risking ever being invited back to the College, when he was so likely to burn himself out again, and when this would do little and nothing to help with his ordeals.

He grabbed an extra two cushions from the foot of his bench and the side of another, before seating himself, lower now than Oretia, and sighing, defeated. He stuffed one cushion below his lower back and rested his head back against the other two, leaving his arms at his sides for a moment, and then hurriedly placing them up on his chest, and then back again, fidgeting.

Oretia didn’t interrupt him at first, letting him flounder as she drank her tea, but when he settled, she shifted in her seat, sitting sideways upon it to face him. He didn’t look relaxed or at ease, but his eyes were closed, and that had to count for something.

“Philip?” she called, softly.

“Yes?” His head tilted slightly, though his eyes stayed blessedly closed, and Oretia smiled fondly, hoping his name had been enough of a warning. She reached out, and could see him flinch when the pressure of the magic advanced upon him.

“Magical sleep won’t—” he began.

“I don’t know how to cast Sleep,” she reminded him, touching the tips of her index, middle and ring fingers to his temples, healing him, possibly worth nothing, but symbolic. He whimpered, caught in the warm pulse and jittering vibrations of the spell, and the knit of his brow loosened, if only slightly.

“Dizzy,” he commented, shifting.

Oretia didn’t think anything of his statement, assuming he might be drifting off. The spell ended, and she made to pull her hands away, but his right hand snapped up, fast and sure, and accurate despite his closed eyes, catching her left wrist. She had to assume he knew she was out of Magicka, and so she faltered for a moment, expecting a warning or a request, but silence dragged on, and his grip loosened, and slowly uncurled her fingers so they caressed across his forehead, into his hair. He let go then, resting his hand on his chest, his breaths coming long and slow, and Oretia felt her chest tighten, heart fluttering at the prospect of watching his body relax otherwise, if her hands were allowed to wander … across his neck, upon his back, and in far more intimate places.

She strongly felt she should take her hand away, as impolite as her thoughts had turned, but she simply looked away from him, collecting her tea in her right hand and distracting herself with what she could see of the College below, while folding her fingers through his hair.

“Philip.” It was tempting to use a diminutive, to tease, but Oretia worried that would be too intimate. She pinched his ear. “Wake up.”

“I told you it wouldn’t work,” he said lazily, touching his ear when her hand left him, and Oretia laughed.

“You’ve been out for about forty minutes.”

“No?” he argued. “It’s been—”

He stopped himself as he sat up, looking to the windows, and the position of the sun.

“I don’t think you hit REM sleep,” Oretia said, “but it’s something. Maybe try tea before bed? Trick your body back into it?”

“I—?” he swallowed, adjusting his hair, still adjusting in so far as Oretia could see. “Maybe.”

Oretia stood and started pulling herself into her coat and was startled when Philip stood too. Flustered, she took a step back, nodding. “Thank you again.”

Confusion yet colored him, “You’re welcome?”

Oretia chose not to elaborate. “I’m glad,” she confessed, relieved. “Good luck with your students, and the rest of your day.”

“I’ll call on you,” Philip said, contributing to Oretia’s abrupt goodbye, fixing her chair at the table. “And bring a Light scroll, in a few days … maybe a week or two.”

“You’re busy,” she allowed.

“The courier from Cyrodiil’s expected soon. I’ll need to see the Jarl for that. Maybe then?”

“I won’t hold you to it.”

“Alright,” Philip conceded. “Be well.”

“ _Rest_ well. Goodbye.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. I'd love a kudos or comment, especially if you're a guest.


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